Michael, Ally, and True went to dinner. Michael ordered trout. Ally ordered steak. True ordered eggplant lasagna. Michael liked the trout, but he thought it was a little dry. Ally thought her steak was the best steak she had ever eaten. True thought their dinner was too salty.
Wait, what? Did True think that all of the three dinners were too salty? Did True sample a bite from Michael’s plate and Ally’s plate? That couldn’t be right, because True was talking about one dinner. No, in this case, True was a nonbinary person, i.e., a person who does not identify as a male or female. So, when True thought “their” dinner was over-salted, True was referring only to True’s dinner.
That True thought this about True’s dinner isn’t readily apparent, though, is it? That’s because of the ambiguity that is created when “they” and “their” are used to refer to a single person in the written language. “They” and “their” are commonly misused in verbal communication all the time, however. Almost all of us use those words incorrectly in casual speech. For instance, I’ve heard things like, “A patient has to take their medicine regularly,” or “That kayaker lost an oar in the water. Would you please reach over and get their oar since you’re closer than they are?”
That usage is incorrect, but, in everyday conversation, it’s the rare person who would correct it (I stopped doing this because I was told it was an annoying trait). However, as a copy editor, that ismy job. I am paid to make sure that nouns and their pronouns/possessive adjectives agree. (I just learned about possessive adjectives about a minute ago. In the last example above, “their” oar is a possessive adjective. “Possessive adjective,” however, is a mouthful, so I am only going to use the word “pronoun” to refer to both pronouns and possessive adjectives from here on out. Please adjust.)
In my capacity as a copy editor, if someone wrote, “A patient has to take their medicine regularly,” I would be obligated to change it to either: “A patient has to take his (or her) medicine regularly,” or “Patients have to take their medicine regularly.” And I would be incompetent if I didn’t change “Would you please reach over and get their oar since you’re closer than they are?” to “Would you please reach over and get his (or her) oar since you’re closer than he (or she) is?”
How a person self-identifies is not my concern. However, I am very concerned with sentence structure. To be fair, alternative pronouns have been introduced, but they never took off, so “they” and “their” are being routinely bandied about to refer to one person, and I just cannot have it. It’s not grammatical.
Yes, language is a living thing and it evolves, and I’m all for that. My father refused to acknowledge that “ginormous” and “horrific” were legitimate words. Those words don’t bother me. I’m totally chill with them. And I’m very woke about gender expression. You can identify any way you want. But I will always believe that singular pronouns are for singular people.
There’s a solution out there. And when I’m crowned Pronoun Queen, I will find it.
“Oh great,” I called out to my brother, Gus, who was in his bedroom down the hall from my office. He’s been staying with us during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“What?”
“Now there’s an Ebola epidemic in the Congo,” I said. “If people start flying again, we’ll probably have Ebola in the U.S. within six months.”
“I would hope that the airlines would take precautions before allowing people from the Congo to get on a plane,” Gus said.
“I think they’ll be very cautious with this epidemic, ” I said.
“I hope so,” Gus said. “But I’m wearing a mask for the rest of my life.”
I laughed. “I’ll start making you face masks featuring bands from the 1980s, then.”
That got a chuckle from Gus. But he didn’t say no to my offer. Gus loves his 80s bands.
“But, seriously, these are scary times we’re living in,” I said. “COVID, rioting in the streets over the murder of George Floyd, systemic racism and sexism in our society, people shooting up schools and businesses, the opioid epidemic, an increase in mental illness, and now Ebola. God is definitely sending us a message.”
“But what is the message?” Gus asked.
“We need to change,” I said.
“Change what?” Gus asked. “Change everything, I guess. But what in particular is God telling us to do differently?”
“I’ll need to think about this,” I said. “I’m not good at giving well-thought-out responses off-the-cuff. But, I do think God is telling us something.”
“I agree,” Gus said, “But at this point, we are going to need instructions.”
This weekend, I tried something new. I got out of bed and left the house three days in a row. Ever since my husband died on May 15, I haven’t made an effort to get out. I work from home mostly, so I didn’t really have to leave except to go to church or buy food. It was hard on some days to just get out of bed and go to my office, which is next to my bedroom.
My friends and family have relentlessly pursued me, though. As a result, I have made the occasional trip to dinner at one of their houses or out to a movie. If it weren’t for them, I would have turned into a recluse.
This weekend, though, I decided to force myself to participate in life. I didn’t know how to emerge from the sadness I was feeling, but I did realize that it wasn’t improving by binge-watching hundreds of hours of mediocre shows on Netflix and Amazon.
On Friday night, I went to a documentary on Woodstock with a friend. It was showing at our library. It wasn’t like any movie on Woodstock I had ever seen. It was an apologist’s version of what had happened. In the movie, everything was wonderful. Yes, drugs were taken and overdoses were treated, but it all worked out for the best. People cleaned up after themselves. Food arrived to feed the starving kids. It was the exact opposite of any movie I had seen or article I had read.
On Saturday, I volunteered at our town’s Oyster Festival, which in any other town would be called a county fair, but I live in coastal New England. We pride ourselves on our maritime history. At the festival, I sold beer tickets for eight straight hours. Our tent was right by the main stage and the line for beer tickets never shortened. Instead, it grew. And as the night wore on, the need for beer increased. We must have sold ten thousand dollars of tickets in one day. Maybe more. The one bright spot was that Billy Joel’s drummer, Mike DelGuidice, who has a band called Big Shot, was the featured act. He sounded just like Billy Joel. He sang Joel’s songs, as well as some of Elton John’s. It was a solid show. I’m glad I volunteered, but it was the hardest work I’ve done since I’ve worn a younger (wo)man’s clothes. At least, I didn’t have time to think about anything except making change and checking IDs.
On Sunday, I went to church. A friend needed a ride to church and home, so I took her. Nothing untoward happened at Mass. Afterwards, though, things got strange.
After dropping my friend off at home, I drove on Ward Street in Norwalk, Connecticut, to the intersection of Union Avenue, and stopped at the stop sign. At the intersection, in a grassy triangle, stood an elderly woman in a dress. As I passed her, I asked if she needed help. She answered me in broken English. I had no idea what she was saying so I told her I’d pull over next to the cemetery so we could talk. I have to credit the drivers behind me. Not one of them honked as I spoke with the woman.
I turned the corner and pulled up against the curb. The woman came over. From what I could make out, she wanted to go to a church in our town. I asked if she needed a ride, and she said yes, and opened the passenger-side door and got in. I still didn’t know where we were going. As I drove, I followed her directions to St. Mary’s Church. While she talked, I figured out most of what she was saying. She told me she was from Colombia and her name was Marta. She was meeting friends at the Spanish Mass at 1:15. I told her that since I picked her up at 1:15, she was going to be late. That didn’t seem to bother her. I asked her how she had planned on getting to the church if I hadn’t picked her up. She said she was going to walk. Wondering how far she had walked until I happened upon her, I asked where she lived. She said she lived on Ward Street, the street I picked her up on. Apparently, she had given up on the walking plan and had decided to hitchhike, minus the thumb. It was so strange. This is not even close to what happens in our neighborhood. One never finds an elderly woman standing in an intersection waiting for someone to ask what she’s doing and if she needs a ride. It just isn’t done.
Anyway, as I pulled up to the church after following her circuitous route, which she assured me was quicker than any route I would have taken, I asked her if she needed a ride home. I didn’t want her quasi-hitchhiking again. She assured me that her friends would take her home. I didn’t ask why they didn’t pick her up. Interpreting her English had worn me out. I was just glad she had a way home. As she got out of the car and thanked me, she said, “I bless you with the cross,” and made the sign of the cross. I told her I blessed her, too. It seemed like the right thing to say. As she walked up the steps to the church, I started laughing and I laughed all the way home.
And you know what? I felt so much better today than I’ve felt in a very long time. Being blessed and having a good laugh can do wonders.
My husband, Frank, recently underwent a CT scan using contrasting dye.
After the test, he was given a card to carry with him, in case the police pulled him over.
“Why would I get pulled over by the police?” he asked.
“Because you’ll be radioactive for the next few days and will appear on GPS,” the PA told him.
“You mean that a person could be following GPS instructions and be told, ‘In 200 feet, turn left at Frank Porco’?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “But you could be pulled over because the police suspect that you’re carrying radioactive materials in your car.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” the PA said. “Your car will show up on police GPS as being radioactive. But once you show them your card, they’ll let you go.”
Frank’s jaw dropped. “So all a person has to do, if he is carrying radioactive materials, is show a card explaining that he was injected with radioactive dye, and the investigation would end there?” he asked.
“Well, I suppose that could happen,” the PA said. “Let’s just hope it never does.”
“And let’s just hope nobody takes a left-hand turn into the front of my car,” he said.
I love tag sales and estate sales. I just love them. Something about finding a treasure for a great price lifts my spirits, tickles my happy bone, and does things to my digestive tract that I’d rather not mention.
You might call them garage sales or yard sales instead of tag sales, but they’re the same thing. Estate sales are another beast entirely. Someone dies and his/her heirs sell off the deceased’s lifelong accumulations. It’s sad, if you think long enough about it … so I don’t.
Sellers know the allure of estate sales, so sometimes they stoop to deceit. I once went to a purported estate sale with a friend. As we walked down a hallway, we passed a closed door that was marked “Do Not Enter.” We thought nothing of it … until a woman who was working the sale approached the door carrying a bowl of soup. She knocked on the door. The door opened a crack, just wide enough for an arm from inside the room to reach out, grab the soup bowl, and then re-close the door.
“I think that person is pretending to be dead,” my friend said. I think she was right.
But usually, estate sales are run by companies that specialize in this type of sale. The people running them are organized, strict about their no-haggling rule, and they don’t allow the heirs or the dead person on the premises while the sale is going on.
It used to be that you attended estate sales in person, but now you can find them online, posing as auctions. The bidding can get fierce at the end of the auctions. Bidders get flooded with adrenaline and pay outrageously high prices for items just so they can beat out other people. I can just imagine their buyer’s remorse the next day when they realize that they bought a piece of junk for a week’s salary. Well, in truth, I don’t have to imagine their remorse. I’ve lived it.
Sometimes, though, you can get a really good deal. I “won” a 10-foot, real leather, two-piece sectional couch for $310. Of course, that was the price before the “bidder’s premium” and taxes were added on. Then, I had to hire two guys to pick it up and bring it to my house. All in all, I paid close to $500. But, it was still a deal. Or that’s what I’m telling myself. It’s also beautiful, which helped to assuage my doubt about the purchase. I finally got to the point where I was very happy that I bought it. I told a bunch of people about it and one said, “I hope it doesn’t have bedbugs.” Oh for the love of God. Some people just have to bring other people down. I told her that we vacuumed it, and disinfected it, and polished the leather and we saw no sign of bugs. I also told her that we got the piece from a gorgeous home in a wealthy neighborhood. She shook her head and said, “Bedbugs cross all income levels.” Rather than kill her, I offered up a prayer that my sectional was bug-free. I’m sure that worked. God is the supreme protector of, among other things, second-hand furniture.
Facebook is also a good place to find online tag/garage/yard sales. Every neighborhood has at least one site where people sell their unwanted possessions. There’s also a Facebook Marketplace which aggregates the individual sale sites. I’ve bought quite a lot of really useful and necessary items from these sites. For example, I got a set of antique mahogany bed steps. The top step has a storage compartment inside it. The second step pulls out onto the bottom step and it, too, has a storage compartment for … bedpans. In the 1800s, when this one was made, people slept in really high beds, so they needed steps to get into them. The steps were kept next to their beds. The lid of the top step flipped open and people kept their spectacles and other other antiquities in the hollow compartment. The second step was used to store a person’s chamber pot. That way, if he or she had to relieve him/herself in the middle of the night, the chamber pot could be used and then shut up in the step until it could be emptied in the morning.
My husband and son were disgusted by this information about my new, 200-year-old bed steps. I assured them that any antique germs that were still lingering inside the second step could easily be obliterated with a few Clorox wipes. How strong could those germs be after two centuries? They’re probably hobbling around on walkers by this point. If I’m wrong, however, I just might become patient zero with the Bubonic Plague. I hope my friends are vaccinated.
In addition to the leather sectional and contaminated bed steps, thanks to local online auctions and Facebook sites, I am also the owner of, among other things, Windsor-like chairs, wicker dressers that needs painting, many pairs of sterling silver candlesticks, a pair of brass candlesticks with hanging crystals, wooden shoe trees, a red Chinese wedding dress, red kitchen chairs, folk-art prints, silver and gold jewelry, and a cast-iron clothes iron with an interesting history.
After some research into my antique iron, I discovered that it was called a “sad iron.” I thought that it was so-named because the person (woman) who was ironing was sad about having to do this job, but that wasn’t the case. It turns out that “sad” used to mean “solid” back in the day. Also, back in olden days, keeping an iron hot was a struggle. A woman would have to heat the iron on her stove, and then carefully remove the iron by grabbing its burning-hot metal handle. After medicating her burnt hand, she’d have to run to the ironing board and iron really fast before the iron got cold again. Then she would put the iron back on the stove and repeat the painful process. Somewhere along the way, somebody invented a wooden handle, aka a “cold handle,” that didn’t absorb as much heat as cast iron so that a person could lift the iron off the stovetop without scalding herself too much —but the real genius of the nineteenth century was a woman named Mary Florence Potts.
Mrs. Potts’s invention changed women’s lives for the better. She invented and patented a clothes iron with a detachable wooden handle. A woman would buy the handle and several metal bases that were pointed on each end (so that ironing could be done in either direction). The brilliant part was that a woman could continue ironing even after her iron got cold because all she had to do was detach the handle from the cold iron, attach the handle to a hot base that was warming on the stove, and then reheat the cold iron. Women went wild for Mrs. Potts’s iron. She was renowned for being a successful female entrepreneur, and her invention appeared at two World Fairs. I am now a proud owner of one of her irons — well, actually, a knockoff of one of her irons. I didn’t know that it was a copy until I looked up Mrs. Potts’s sad iron online. The genuine irons say “Mrs. Potts Sad Iron.” She started off selling them herself but eventually let the American Machine Company of Philadelphia do her marketing and selling. Unfortunately, mine was made by the A.C. Williams Co. of Ravenna, Ohio. Regardless, I feel honored to own a piece of history — a copycat piece of history, but a piece, nonetheless.
While writing this, it occurred to me that what I enjoy most about these sales is the thrill of the hunt. I get exhilarated when I find a one-of-a-kind item for a great price. Sometimes, though, those unique items turn out to be less than one-of-a-kind (like the time I bought my cousin a “vintage, handmade quilt washed and hung to dry in the Texas sun” that turned out to be a used quilt from Bed Bath & Beyond), but those setbacks don’t deter me.
The only deterrent to my hobby could be my husband, but so far he’s been very accepting of my purchases — the ones he knows about, that is. So far, he hasn’t looked in the chamber-pot storage area of my bed steps. And, I doubt he ever will.
All over social media there are people saying that they can’t wait to see 2018 end. They say it was a horrible year and good riddance to it.
Let’s all take a breath and assess 2018. Something good had to have happened this year to each of us. In fact, I think that almost every event can be perceived in both a negative and a positive light (if you look really hard), so I’m going to attempt to find some sun amidst the darkness.
While 2018 presented challenges for me and my family this year, it also brought us our fabulous dog, Duke, whom we adopted from a local shelter. If we hadn’t gotten Duke, I wouldn’t be sitting at my laptop right now, listening to him emit sounds similar to a balloon slowly losing air. I also wouldn’t be enveloped in a cloud of gas so noxious and thick that I will have to fight my way out of it. But that’s the price we pay for having a hilarious, fun-loving, affectionate, and loyal dog. We love him to pieces and he loves us right back. We just don’t take him out in public.
Also in 2018, my commute to work got longer by 2 subway rides. This added about 20 minutes to my trip and will probably subtract years from my life. I used to take one train ride into Manhattan, but then my company moved and I could no longer walk to my office from Grand Central, at least not in a timely manner. Now, when I arrive at Grand Central, I have to elbow my way through dense crowds of people taking pictures of the astrological drawings on the ceiling, race down tunnels and stairs to the Times Square shuttle track, and push my way into a jammed subway car. When we get to the Times Square stop, I catch a train downtown to my job. The Times Square stop is like an underground carnival, where you can watch amateur musical and acrobatic performers, buy newspapers, vinyl records, and rolling papers, or join a cult. On every shuttle to or from Times Square, you will be unwillingly or unwittingly entertained. There is sometimes a man who takes up four seats with a portable keyboard and who plays songs and sings during the short ride. Other times, you get on the train and don’t see anything out of the ordinary and then the doors close and someone sitting all alone will start belting out songs at top volume when nobody expects it. This can be very jarring to your nerves, especially if you haven’t had enough coffee yet. Sometimes a dodgy group of men will appear from another car and start clicking their fingers and tapping their toes and proceed to rap a song they’re composing on the spot. The performers always request donations as the doors of the train open, but if you plant yourself by the door when you get on, you can escape before they get to you. But, despite being part of a captive audience and having to endure a longer commute, I eventually arrive at a job that I love and work with people who are really nice. And there’s free coffee. Of course, after my enjoyable day in the office, I have to repeat the above-described commute in reverse, during the afternoon rush. But—and here’s another upside—I only do this once a week because I am allowed to work from home the other four days. I left that information out until now so you could feel sorry for me, at least for a minute or two.
While the next thing happened in 2017, it affected 2018, so I’m including it: In the summer of 2017, during a party we hosted in our yard, one of our picnic tables fell through the deck. The adult table wasn’t affected, but the kids’ table hit the deck, or actually crashed through the deck onto the ground a few feet below. Only one child was sitting at the table at that time and fortunately he wasn’t hurt. He kept eating his hotdog as we hauled him up through the splintered wood. Then we moved the childrens’ table next to the adults’ table, which was on more stable decking, and continued on with the party. A year later, we finally replaced the deck. So, 2018 brought us a new deck … and no lawsuit from the child’s parents.
There were other events in 2018 that I’m still examining to find a positive side, so I understand that some things that happen can be fairly awful. But when you find yourself dwelling on the bad things that happened this year, be grateful that a flatulent dog isn’t sitting next to you making outrageously rude noises. I’ve never heard of a dog who makes noises when he passes gas. He could well be an old man in a fur coat.
My wish for 2019 is that the year brings upsides that outweigh the downsides. That’s all I want … and Beano for our dog.
Many years ago, my sister said that she is afraid of ironing because she always winds up with her head under the ironing board, afraid that the iron will fall off the board and onto her face, thus scarring her for life.
When she told me about her unusual fear, I laughed. And from that moment on, every time I ironed, I found myself crawling around on the floor under the ironing board, also afraid that the iron, which was always precariously balanced on the edge of the board, would fall on my face, thus scarring me for life.
I don’t know why she and I always end up on the floor under the ironing board, but we do. Sometimes I’m under there picking up something silky that slipped off the board. Sometimes I’m wiping up water that leaked out of the iron onto the floor. Other times, I’m shoving the dog out from under the ironing board before he jostles the iron off the board and onto his face … thus, scarring him for life.
This doesn’t keep me from ironing, though. I love to iron. Give me a pile of wrinkled clothes, a can of spray starch, and a movie on TV, and I’m happy. I get great satisfaction from the piles of starched and folded clothes that I transformed from unwearable to glorious. Ironing also calms me.
I have a friend who gets the same therapeutic benefits from prepping food. “I just love chopping, grating, mincing, slicing, dicing, and muddling,” she told me. She likes having little bowls and ramekins filled with all of her prepared ingredients before she begins cooking. I guess I can see how the monotony of chopping, grating, mincing, slicing, dicing, and muddling could be a soothing activity but it doesn’t appeal to me. That’s probably because after doing all of that mindless work, I’d have to actually cook.
I can cook, and I do cook, but I don’t enjoy it. It’s probably because my mother spent an enormous amount of time preparing meals that were complicated, beautiful, and delicious. I either don’t think I can live up to her abilities, or I’m lazy. It’s probably the latter. I could live on meat and vegetable pizza for the rest of my life. It’s the perfect food, containing all of the food groups. No additional salad required.
My chopping, grating, mincing, slicing, dicing, and muddling friend doesn’t understand this at all. But she’s Italian. ‘Nuff said.
I’m part Irish and was probably a washer woman in a past life, so that might explain my love of ironing. But I could also have been a dog, considering how much time I spend crawling around on the floor. I was probably in the same pack as my sister.
Yes, the word “the” is missing from before “cover” in this meme, but I hope you can overlook that and enjoy the message.
I have a neighbor, Mike, who is closing in on 90 years of age. He was born in Ireland and emigrated to the U.S. when he was a young man.
One thing that I discovered during my visits to him is that he’s very secretive about his age. Naturally, I became determined to figure out how old he is. It’s just human nature. Anytime someone tries to hide his or her age, deducing it becomes imperative for people who know the person.
During one visit to his house, I made it a point to ask him how old he was when he came to the U.S. He told me he was 21. The next time I saw him, I asked him what year he arrived here. He said it was in 1949. Last week, I asked him when his birthday was and he said November 18. Then I did the math. By my calculations, he should be celebrating his 90th birthday soon. Unless he lied. He’s very quick-witted, so I’m sure he figured out why I was asking him all of those date-related questions.
Another thing I learned about Mike is that he’s very interesting to talk to, or I should say listen to. He can talk for hours about the old days in Ireland. He can’t hear very well, so I only ask my most pressing questions because I have to yell to be heard by him. And then I usually have to repeat my question at top volume, because he still doesn’t always hear what I’ve asked. Sometimes he pretends to hear, or I hope he’s pretending. Today, he asked how I was. I said, “I have a headache.” He said, “That’s good.”
During my visit today, he told me many stories. My favorites involved chimney sweeps, a nursing sow, and St. Stephen’s Day.
Mike told me that, right before Christmas, everyone in Ireland cleaned their chimneys so that Santa wouldn’t get dirty when he entered and exited their homes. How it was done was: one male member of the family would climb up on the roof with three or four small fir trees tied to a thick rope. Another male family member would stand in the house by the fireplace. The man on the roof would lower the fir trees down the chimney to the man by the fireplace. When the trees hit the floor, the man on the ground would yell, “Up, up!” The man on the roof would then pull the trees back up. Once the trees reached the top of the chimney, the man on the ground would call, “Down, down!” This went on until the chimney was clean and both men were covered with soot. I asked him how they knew when to stop. He said, “When they decided it was clean enough.”
Then he told me about a sow that his family owned. The sow had 12 piglets and when it was feeding time, each piglet attached itself to one of the sow’s teats. At the next feeding time, they all went back to the nipple they had used before. God help the piglet who tried to take a different nipple. He or she got knocked down by the piglet who “owned” that particular nipple.
The last story involved birds. Mike said that the wrens (he pronounced it “rins”) in Ireland—he couldn’t speak for wrens in other countries—built nests with a roof and a little door, and the mother wren always laid 18 tiny speckled eggs, the size of grapes. He said that they were told that wrens were an endangered species that needed to be protected. So, on St. Stephen’s Day, December 26 (the Day of the Wren in Ireland), little kids would knock on doors and collect money to protect the wrens. Mike said that the kids usually went in pairs, but sometimes three or more children made up a group. The children all wore wooden clogs, which was their everyday footwear. One of the kids in each group would bring a tin whistle, harmonica, or another small instrument. When the homeowner answered the door, the kids would go into the kitchen. Together, they would recite:
“The wren, the wren, the king of all birds, on St. Stephen’s Day got caught in the firs. She is little, but her family is great. So give us some money to keep her safe.”
Then, one kid would play his whistle and the other would dance in his wooden clogs on the flagstone floor. Mike said they made such a racket that any dogs in the house would go for their throats. After the performance, they would be given a “coppers,” i.e., pennies or half pennies. Mike said they never got silver. Then they would proceed to the next house. Mike said there would be hell to pay if they missed a house. Surprisingly, people looked forward to the kids’ visits.
The collection territories were very distinct, so each group of kids could only go to certain neighborhoods or they’d face the wrath of the kids whose area they invaded. Mike said he always only had one partner, and they went to three villages. After Mike and his friend were finished collecting for the wrens, they went to his house and sat on the stone wall in front of it. Because there wasn’t actually any charity that they knew of that was dedicated to saving the wrens, he and his partner would divide up the coins. Mike said that was why he only allowed one other kid in his group, to maximize their profits.
After filling their pockets with coppers, they’d head down to the two stores in their village to buy school supplies, candy … and cigarettes. There were two brands of cigarettes available for purchase at their stores, but the best one was Players, he said. He and his partner would each buy a pack of cigarettes and, if their take was especially profitable, they’d spring for Players. Then they would go and smoke a few behind a barn. Any leftover cigarettes would be hidden from their parents to be smoked at another time.
I’m sure the wrens approved of how their money was spent. What would they do with coppers, anyway?
I spent the day trying to determine whether our dog, Duke, is deaf. It never occurred to me that he might be until today. I had opened the back door to let him in. He was stretched out by the door and facing away from me. I called his name over and over with no reaction from him. Then I nudged him with my foot and he jumped up and came right in.
“I think Duke is deaf,” I told my husband.
“Wow,” my husband said.
I told him what had just happened and he said, “Huh.”
To prove that I was right, I followed Duke around and called his name when he was looking away from me. No response.
After dinner, I saw him stretched out under the dining table, facing away from me. I called his name and he didn’t move. Then I said, “Cookie!”
He immediately stood up, turned around, walked into the kitchen, and sat in front of the jar where I keep his dog cookies.
“He’s not deaf,” I said to my husband who was also in the kitchen.
“What?” he asked.
“I said that Duke’s not deaf,” I said.
“Who said he was dead?”
“Never mind,” I said.
It turns out I was following the wrong family member around.
Our mission at Chicks with Ticks is to enlighten and empower those who work or play in the great outdoors by providing a source for information, inspiration, and practical help on how to enjoy, enhance, and survive any outdoor adventure.
“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” ― Douglas Adams
While 2018 presented challenges for me and my family this year, it also brought us our fabulous dog, Duke, whom we adopted from a local shelter. If we hadn’t gotten Duke, I wouldn’t be sitting at my laptop right now, listening to him emit sounds similar to a balloon slowly losing air. I also wouldn’t be enveloped in a cloud of gas so noxious and thick that I will have to fight my way out of it. But that’s the price we pay for having a hilarious, fun-loving, affectionate, and loyal dog. We love him to pieces and he loves us right back. We just don’t take him out in public.
Patsy Porco's Blog: Free and Worth It! 